Mobile Telephone Technology for Better Healthcare Service Provision in Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria

Conference paper
First Online:
Part of the Communications in Computer and Information Science book series (CCIS, volume 674)

Abstract

This paper examined the effect of mobile telephone technology on physical distance separating out-patients from healthcare centres. A structured questionnaire which focused on socio-demographic characteristics (gender, age, income) and mobile telephone usage for healthcare services was randomly administered on 711 out-patients in Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH). Mobile telephone ownership among out-patients was 98.9%. About 33% used mobile telephone to access healthcare services. Mobile telephone technology deployment in the health domain negates the distance decay function given a correlation value of r = 0.86 between distance travelled and mobile telephone usage. This suggests that mobile telephone could enhance better healthcare provision for out-patients in Lagos metropolis, Nigeria.

Keywords

Mobile telephone usage Healthcare service provision Distance decay effect Lagos metropolis Nigeria 
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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Faculty of the Social Sciences, Department of GeographyUniversity of IbadanIbadanNigeria

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